Will your USB WiFi adapter (product ID 1012) work with Beagl

[paulb6]

Hello:

I'm interested to know if the USB WiFi adapter AdaFruit sells (product ID 1012 see: http://www.adafruit.com/products/1012) will work with a BeagleBone Black out of the box?

The product description says it will work with a BeagleBone without building any kernel modules and I would like to confirm this is true for the BeagleBone black as well.

I've been having a tough time building kernel modules for the stock Angstrom distribution that ships with the BeagleBone Black for the USB WiFi adapters I have on hand and have decided it would be simpler to just buy one or two that are known to work out of the box.

Thanks,
Paul

[adafruit_support_mike]

That adapter should work with a BBB running Angstrom right out of the box, but I don't have one on hand to confirm that with a physical test. Let me ask around and see if anyone can give a positive thumbs-up from direct testing.

[adafruit]

It should work! but it seems to work a lot better with ubuntu (well, pretty much everything seems to work better with ubuntu over angstrom )
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... 92uD9F1us8
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... 1iD4INQ6xM

[tim mcpherson]

I didn't have any luck with either the short or long WiFi adapters purchased from Adafruit on either the BBB or the white variation. The BBB desktop network manager was able to "see" my wireless router, but would not connect. I spent some time trying different security configurations on my router, but ultimately gave up and attached it to a wireless bridge with a cable for now.

[paulb6]

Mike and Tim, thanks for the information.

Mike, what you reported is pretty much what I've seen (it should work if you have a 2A adapter, but WIFI support is much better in Ubuntu than in Angstrom).

Tim, what you reported is what we were afraid of. We too have been using a wireless bridge when using a BBB as a "remote sensor" and were looking to replace the wireless bridge with a less expensive WIFI adapter.

It's a bit of a bummer as I've been wanting to introduce some of the kids I work with at the high school to the BBB. Simply showing them how they can plug it in via a USB port and bring up the Cloud 9 IDE and start bread boarding projects will get them excited (it's an excellent educational tool). It would be nice if bringing up WIFI were as easy. I'm sure that teaching them how to try and track down and build kernel modules and flash another OS would be good for them - I'm just not sure how many of them are ready to go that deep yet. Maybe for now we will just stick to Ethernet.

[tim mcpherson]

For what it's worth, the Raspberry Pi worked without much fuss using the same WiFi dongles. The Pi and the BB run the same Python code, but the BB is considerably faster using the GUI at the default settings. Have fun!

[jlbeck]

I struggled a long time with various wifi adapters. The solution that finally worked was to add a short 6 inch usb cable between the BBB and wifi adapter.

[tim mcpherson]

jlbeck,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a try.

[dtownmaker]

Same issue as this thread perhaps? WiFi only works through cable or hub.

Anyone confirm if this is the case for ubuntu and angstrom?

http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=47526

[cvbruce]

I gave up on trying to get my BBB to work with a USB WiFi adapter.

I'm running Debian Wheezy so that the software on my Raspberry Pi's and my BBB would be about the same. I have a couple of USB WiFi Dongles that use the Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8192CU 802.11n WLAN Adapter chipset, and as expected it works the same with both of them.

I could get the WiFi to work for a little while, but then the WiFi would lock up. The light on the adapter would turn solid, and I would loose the BBB from the network. A reboot would start it working again, and it would connect to the network, but after a little while lock up again.

I was hoping that the adapter Adafruit sells would solve my problems, but it sounds like people are having the same or worse problems with it.

[paulb6]

As a follow up, I did find a USB adapter that works (with issues) out of the box on the BeagleBone Black. The adapter (model number UWN100) was sold by Logic Supply (I found it on amazon) and advertised as working out of the box.

• I do have a 2A power supply on the BeagleBone Black (this seems to be recommended when using USB WIFI adapters).
• I do not have a USB extension cable (the USB dongle is plugged directly into the USB port).
• I am able to establish a WPA PSK WIFI connection.

While I'm not sure if would be helpful to others or not, I've listed the modules that are loaded when the adapter is plugged in. I'm guessing that the mtnet7601Usta, mt7601Usta, and mtutil7601Usta modules are the ones related to the WIFI USB adapter:

Code: Select all

root@salsa:~# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
ip_tables               8294  0 
x_tables               15072  1 ip_tables
g_multi                55905  2 
libcomposite           15228  1 g_multi
rfcomm                 25106  0 
mtnet7601Usta          25701  1 
mt7601Usta            753921  1 mtnet7601Usta
mtutil7601Usta         65890  2 mt7601Usta,mtnet7601Usta
ircomm_tty             14503  0 
ircomm                  8846  1 ircomm_tty
irda                   89974  2 ircomm_tty,ircomm
ipv6                  229989  12 
hidp                   10112  0 
bluetooth             146100  4 hidp,rfcomm
rfkill                 16510  3 bluetooth
autofs4                17432  2 
root@salsa:~# 

While the adapter does work out of the box and is able to make an encrypted WPA connection to my home network, I have found that it periodically locks up and loses communications until the system is rebooted. It seems to lock up every 20 hours or so.

In my current project, I am using the BeagleBone Black for some experimental data logging (it's sitting on top of the refrigerator tracking how often and how long the fridge and freezer doors are opened). The data is logged locally to daily files and then collected, distributed and processed by other systems on the network.

The data logged by this project is fairly infrequent. Maybe 50 log entries a day (it was actually surprising to see how often the doors are opened each day). It became a hassle to manually power cycle the BeagleBone or take a laptop in to connect locally and reboot. I decided to write a simple script that checks to verify the BeagleBone can "ping" another system on my network. If the ping fails, the script then reboots the system. It's a poor man's watch dog. In any case, if this "auto-reboot" is useful to anyone else with WIFI woes, here is the script (it's fairly trivial):

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

# Change PING_HOST to IP address on your network that responds to ping
declare PING_HOST=192.168.1.1

if ! /bin/ping -c 1 ${PING_HOST} > /dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo "$(/bin/date): Failed to ping ${PING_HOST} rebooting" >> /var/log/wifi-check.log 2>&1;
  /sbin/reboot;
fi

In order to automate the running of the above script (which I saved to "/home/root/bin/check-wifi.bash"), the following crontab entry was made:

Code: Select all

25 * * * *    /home/root/bin/check-wifi.bash

It certainly isn't a perfect solution. I really expect my Linux based applications to run 24x7. However, it seems to be a work around for me on this project that has a low probability of causing me to miss a data point.

Now, if only the BeagleBone Blacks would come back into stock. I'm itchin' to start on another project.